You've got the love
by Listen2TheThunder
Summary: Or, Rachel Berry and her best friends.


She's had her first best friend since she was two years old. Or at least, that's what her dads tell her. He's smaller than she is, which is a major plus in the friend point system she created in kindergarten. Don't judge. If she's going to become a very famous Broadway actress someday-and she is- then she's going to have to be very selective of who her friends are. Regardless, he comes stuffed in a meticulously wrapped gift box, three days after her second birthday. She doesn't find out that Shelby sent him to her until graduation, when her birth mother shows up at the party her dads throw her.

His name is Mr. Ted. E. Berry, and he has a very dapper red and white polka dotted bow tie wrapped around his neck. He encounters furious cuddles every night, up until she turns ten years old because "now that I am to the double digit age it is unnecessary to have to sleep with a stuffed animal by my side." However, Mr. Berry doesn't stray too far. Throughout awkward middle school and torturous high school, he's perched carefully along the top of her books shelf, keeping an eye out for his best friend.

Her second best friend comes at the age of five. Kindergarten has just begun and she had quickly fallen in the joys of being able to go to school like the other big kids that go to temple at the same time her dads take her. She gets assigned to sit next to the small boy with the glasses on her first day, something about "alphamabetical order" her teacher tells her. Like she knows what that means. All she needs to know at five years old is that her name is Rachel Barbara Berry and that she's going to be a star one day. They become quick friends over a common interest in Batman. They share blocks during play time, her 64 pack of crayolas during art, and they split their lunches half and half everyday. He's her only friend for so long, that when all of a sudden Artie Abrams stops coming to class halfway through the year, she doesn't know what to do with herself. When she sees him for the first time at the grocery store, six months later, sitting in a shiny green wheelchair, with only his dad by his side, he avoids her gaze and hastily wipes at the tears coming to his eyes.

She's in the second grade when her dads finally give in and sign her up for the dance class she's been begging to join. When she walks in on the first day, it's a bubbly blonde that first greets her, instead of the teacher like she would have assumed. Brittany S. Pierce quickly makes her way up the Rachel Berry friendship scale, and so, by default, so does Santana Lopez. It's like Brittany doesn't exist without Santana, and Santana doesn't seem to exist without Brittany. Brittany is a good friend to her, up until the day when her and Santana move up to the harder dance class, and leave Rachel alone with Suzie Jalapeno or something. When Rachel's finally advanced enough to join the two girls, they've already switched to a different dance studio in Lima, and Rachel doesn't see them again.

Noah Puckerman becomes her best friend on one unfortunate May day, when they accidentally get locked inside the shed behind their synagogue. She's nine years old now, and she's developed an intense dislike of the male species. It only intensifies when they get stuck in such small quarters that day. He smells icky and sweats extensively for a barely-ten year old. He notices her discomfort though, and promises her that he's actually a nice kid, something she'll hold over him until the day they die.

Somehow they end up talking; mostly about things they've had to deal with that no nine year old should have to experience. He talks about his stupid father leaving his mother two years ago, and how he has to mow lawns in his neighborhood to help his mom pay for groceries. She talks about how her fathers aren't home that often but she's got two of them so they can share as long as she gets a mom out of the deal. By the time Mrs. Norman, their "teacher", finds them, Rachel has acquired her first hug and kiss on the cheek from a boy. They spend every day after school for the next four years at one of their houses, doing things normal best friends do, until one day he tells her that they should take their friendship to whole 'nother level: Secret Best Friends.

When high school starts she's fourteen, one of the youngest kids in her class. She starts off the year with some pencils and notebooks, unlike the other kids who start off with friends and acquaintances. She doesn't have many friends at McKinley. The only people she really consider as friends come from her various dance and/or singing lessons, and even then they're more of frenemies than people should would call on a Friday night to go to the movies with. She had Noah, secretly of course. When he came up with the idea, she was hurt at first that he cared more about a stupid reputation than about her, but after he reassured her that wasn't the case, she decided it would be an excellent acting exercise. She and Artie hadn't talked in years. It's still hard to face him after really knowing him before the accident. Last she heard, Brittany and Santana went to the freshman campus on the other side of town. And Mr. Berry sits perfectly among her books, but she doesn't want to be one of those high school kids- the ones who only talk to inanimate objects and who's only friends include their dog and occasionally their stuffed animals. So Rachel Berry walks into McKinley high the first day of her freshman year friendless. It takes time, but by winter break, she's made a total of two new friends.

Kurt Hummel and Mercedes Jones meet Rachel Berry run into Rachel one day when she's walking out of her Geometry class. She had been rifling through her backpack as she was walking out the classroom door, and didn't notice the two divas walking in the hall ahead of her. Or they didn't notice her. The three like to argue about who the blame should fall on, but in the end, it doesn't matter. The trio bonds over a common love of Channing Tatum and their shared desire to get the hell out of Lima. They join Glee club at the beginning of their sophomore year, and though it seems like they fight a lot to everyone else, nobody knows the true nature of their friendship. They push each other to be the best they can be and no matter what Mercedes may say about deserving a solo, Rachel knows not to get offended.

On her last first day of school, Rachel can proudly say that she walks in the doors with pencils, notebooks, and even friends. The Glee club had grown so much in the past two years, and they had gone from hating each other's guts, to being more of a family unit than she had experienced in a while. Mercedes and Kurt had already begun searching for a New York apartment that the three of them would share. The Cheerios had gotten over their self-righteousness and had actually become people should would consider great friends. She and Noah no longer had to hide their affection for each other, they were free to hug in public and it wasn't unusual to see them walking to class together. Finn was… well he was Finn. After their break-up/make-up/break-up fiasco, she had decided that they would be much better as friends than as anything else. And as usual, Rachel Berry was right. Artie Abrams could look her in the eye again, and when the Dark Knight came to theaters freshman year, you could bet they were in line for the midnight showing. Sam, Blaine, Tina, Mike and the new Irish guy weren't strangers either. You would find Rachel hanging out with at least one other glee member everyday after school, and weekends were spent together more often than not. It was the perfect way to end her life in Lima, and though most of the club would be apart the upcoming year, when they went off to college, she knew their friendship would last forever.

She can't remember the moment they went from "kind of" friends to actual friends. Quinn Fabray had been an integral part of Rachel's high school experience. Whether the blonde was throwing slushees in Rachel's face, or fighting over a guy, they always seemed to be connected in some way. So it really shouldn't have been a surprise when Rachel quite literally bumped into Quinn walking out of a coffee shop, a couple blocks from her apartment in New York. She should have known this would have happened, but her psychic abilities had been lax since she'd left Ohio a year and a half earlier. She hadn't known Quinn was in the city, last she'd heard the blonde was taking a year off to travel through Europe. They reconnected over coffee, and before she knew it, she'd moved in with Quinn when her lease on the apartment with Kurt and Mercedes ended. Quinn Fabray became the greatest influence in Rachel Berry's life, but for some odd reason, it just seemed as if that was natural.

One day, when she was twenty-five, Rachel Berry married her best friend. She had quickly realized that there was a reason Quinn kept popping back up in her life, and a reason why the blonde was given so many second chances. It wasn't an extravagant wedding by any means. It was a small ceremony, for their family, and their best friends, which Rachel Berry-Fabray could say she had plenty of. And yes, Mr. Ted E. Berry was there as well.

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><p><strong>AN: Kinda pointless, but I really needed to get this out of my system. Hopefully you liked it!<strong>


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